how to find end portal

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Advanced players can enter Minecraft's final zone - The End. Players go to the End to challenge the ender dragon and explore treasure-filled cities in the sky. Before you can do this, however, you'll need to find a rare End Portal using Eyes of Ender. Make sure you're well equipped before you set out on this long and difficult quest.

Bedrock Edition players: The End is only available in version 1.0 or later (released December 2016) and not in the "Old" world type.

Creative Mode players: If you can't get the portal to activate, build a new one around you while standing in the center. This guarantees that the blocks are facing the right direction.

1
Enter the Nether. Finding and activating an End Portal requires ingredients you can only find in the Nether, Minecraft's underworld. Make a Nether portal and travel through it to get started.^[1]
- To make a Nether Portal, place obsidian blocks in a rectangle 4 blocks wide and 5 blocks high, skipping the interior of the rectangle. If you are low on obsidian, you can skip the corners. Activate the lower obsidian blocks with a flint and steel.
- The Nether is a dangerous area. Prepare yourself with high quality food and enchanted diamond equipment. You may also want a shield, a bow and arrow, and wood to craft with.
2
Kill blazes to collect blaze rods . Blazes are yellow, floating monsters surrounded by smoke. They are only found in Nether fortresses — structures supported by pillars over a lava ocean. Defeat blazes and collect the blaze rods they drop. You'll usually need at least 5 blaze rods to find and activate the end portal, and it often takes 7 or more.^[2]
- It's much easier to find Nether fortresses if you travel along the x-axis (east or west).
- Killing blazes is difficult, and the rods only drop if you kill them directly or with a tamed wolf. It helps to have an enchanted bow, or plenty of snowballs (it takes seven to kill 1 blaze).
3
Kill endermen to collect ender pearls. Endermen are the black, tentacled mobs that only attack when you look at them. If you don't have plenty of ender pearls yet, kill Endermen until you do. You'll need two ender pearls for each blaze rod.^[3]
- This task is made less tedious if you have the Looting enchantment on a diamond sword as it will increase your chances of getting Ender Pearls.
- Endermen are found in the Overworld in groups of 1-4. They do spawn in the Nether, but at a very rare chance, in groups of 4. They spawn in light levels of 7 or less.
- Be careful when killing the Enderman, because they're powerful enough to kill you.
4
Craft eyes of ender. Eyes of ender have the ability to locate end portals, and to activate them. You'll usually need at least 9 eyes of ender for this, often more. Craft them using these recipes:^[4]
- Place a blaze rod in the crafting area to turn it into 2 blaze powders.
- Place a blaze powder and an ender pearl anywhere in the crafting area to make an eye of ender.

1
Use an eye of ender. Equip the eye of ender and press "use" while you're holding it. It will float up into the air, then travel a short distance horizontally in the direction of the nearest stronghold. (All end portals are found inside strongholds.)^[5]
- In the Computer version of Minecraft, the closest strongholds are at least 1408 blocks away from the world's origin point.^[6] Get to at least this distance before using any eyes of ender.
- The eye of ender will leave a faint purple trail behind as it moves, so you can follow it even if you lose sight of it.
- The eye of ender will only work in the Overworld, not the Nether.
2
Collect the eye of ender. Each eye of ender has a 20% chance of breaking each time you use it. The other 80% of the time, you can pick it up from where it fell.^[7]
- This is why it's important to have a couple at a time.
3
Walk in the direction of the eye. Strongholds are very far apart in the Computer and Bedrock editions, and there is only one in the entire world in Console edition. To avoid wasting eyes of ender, walk at least 500 blocks before using an eye again.^[8]
- Try to walk in the straightest line possible. If you keep your cursor on the eye as it floats, the direction you're pointed in should be perfect. Check your coordinates and keep the Facing as steady as you can.
4

Keep throwing eyes until one travels downward. If the eye travels down to the ground, you are close to an underground stronghold. If the eye floats back the way you came, you passed the stronghold already.^[9]
5
Dig out the stronghold. Dig a staircase down until you find a room in the stronghold. The eye of ender just points to the stronghold, not the end portal. You might not see what you're looking for yet, but you're close.^[10]
- This does not apply to all versions of Minecraft.
6
Find the portal room. Every stronghold has one portal room, with a staircase leading to a platform over a pool of lava. Be aware that there is a silverfish spawner on the staircase. The end portal is on top of the platform, with a border of green squares. Be prepared to fight silverfish on the stairway.^[11]
- Strongholds can have many rooms, and they are not necessarily all connected. If you only find dead ends, dig around the surrounding area to find more rooms. It can take a long time to find the portal room.
- There's a small chance that another structure (such as a mineshaft) breaks into the portal room. If it interrupts the portal, that portal is not usable. On a PC, you can find another stronghold. On a Console, there is only one stronghold per world, so you can't reach the End without cheats.
7
Activate the end portal. Unless you're very lucky, the portal won't be active when you first find it. To activate it, put an eye of ender into each of the 12 green squares (ender portal frames) around the portal. The portal usually spawns with a couple eyes of ender already attached, so you usually don't need to make all 12 yourself.^[12]
- There's about a 10% chance that a square will have an eye of ender in it already, so usually there will be one or two you don't have to worry about.
8
Jump into the portal. When you place the last eye of ender in the portal, a starry black portal will appear. Jump into this when you're ready to enter the End and fight the Ender Dragon.^[13]
- Be warned: this is a one-way trip (for now). You can't come back from the portal unless you slay the mighty dragon or die trying.

1
Open your coordinates. Press F3 on the computer, or equip and use a map on the console. Locate the x, z, and Facing values on the number overlay.^[14]
- On some Mac computers, you'll need to press Fn + F3 , or ⌥ Option + Fn + F3 .
2

Throw an eye of ender. Move your cursor to the point where the eye hovers. Write down the x, z, and Facing values on your screen. The x- and z-coordinates describe your position on the map, and Facing tells you the direction you are looking. You only need the first number listed after Facing, not the second.^[15]
3

Repeat this at another location. Travel 200 to 300 blocks away from your last position. Do not walk in the direction the eye traveled, or directly opposite it. Use an eye of ender again, move your cursor over the point where it hovers, and write down a new set of x, z, and Facing values.^[16]
4
Enter these values into an online tool. The information you wrote down describes 2 lines on your Minecraft map, each pointing to the stronghold. Finding the intersection of the lines takes some trigonometry, but there are several online tools that will do the math for you. Try this one, or search online for "minecraft stronghold locator." The tool should give you the x and z coordinates of the nearest stronghold.^[17]
- Since the Computer edition has many strongholds, there's a small chance that the two eyes were pointing to different ones. This is unlikely as long as the two points were less than a few hundred blocks away from each other.
5

Calculate it yourself. If you can't find an online tool, you can calculate the coordinates using these formulas:^[18]

1
Get your world seed. Each Minecraft world has a string of letters and numbers called a "seed." This determines the whole terrain layout, including the stronghold locations. Locate and copy (or write down) this string:^[19]
- Java edition: Type /seed. If commands are not enabled, turn them on first using Esc → Open to LAN → Allow Cheats → Start LAN World .
- Console edition: Go to the select world menu and look for the seed next to your world. (If it isn't listed there, you may need to download a seed finding tool.)
- Bedrock edition: Go to the main menu. Hit Play , then Edit . The seed appears underneath each world name.
2
Create a Creative world with the same seed. Create a new world set to Creative mode. On the world creation screen, enter the seed exactly as it appears. (Click More World Options first in the Computer edition.)^[20]
- Select the same world type as your main world.
3

Locate a stronghold. Since you're in Creative mode, you can put unlimited eyes of ender in your inventory. Use them and fly in the direction they're moving until you reach a stronghold.^[21]
4
Write down the x-, y-, and z- coordinates of the stronghold. Since you used the same world seed, your Survival world should have a stronghold in exactly the same coordinates.^[22]
- On the computer, press F3 to view your coordinates. On some Mac computers, press Fn + F3 , or ⌥ Option + Fn + F3 instead.
- On a console, use a map item to find your coordinates.
- On Pocket Edition, the easiest method is to use a third-party program.

1
Fight and kill the ender dragon. Once you've gone through the end portal, the only way out is to kill the dragon first. You'll need to use your sword, bow and arrow, and plenty of armor to wear the dragon down bit by bit. It can take a lot of preparation and work, so you should only go through the portal once you're ready.^[23]
- The dragon is guarding the portal back to the Overworld, which is why you have to defeat it first.
2
Go through the obsidian gateway. Once you've defeated the dragon, you can enter the gateway that it was protecting. This will bring you back home and return you to the normal game play area.^[24]
- You'll even get to watch Minecraft's "credits" since you reached the very end of the game.
3
Return to the last place you rested if you die. The other way to get out of the end portal (besides killing the dragon) is to be defeated in combat and die. This will teleport you back to the last place you rested, but you will lose everything you were holding, so it's not a great option.^[25]
- This is why it's important to be prepared to fight the ender dragon once you travel through the portal. If you aren't prepared, you'll probably lose your items.

Add New Question

Question

I cannot find my portal, but I've found my stronghold. How do I find the portal?

This answer was written by one of our trained team of researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

wikiHow Staff Editor

Staff Answer

Keep digging downwards until you find a staircase over a platform with a pool of lava. If you see silverfish, you'll know you're heading in the right direction.
Question

I use the eye of Ender but I can't find the End portal. Any suggestions?

Anuj_Kumar1

Community Answer

End portals are usually under the ground. Throw ender eyes in sky. If they move to any direction, continue moving to that direction. When you reach end portal location, eyes will not go to any direction but they will start falling downward to the ground. You may dig deep in ground to find the stronghold. Strongholds have one main room with End portal in it. You may need to get many eyes of ender for this. I always do this in creative mode. Just for the information, New version of minecraft does have a "/locate" command and it can tell you the coordinates for any village, stronghold, mineshaft, etc. and is much easier to find stuff.
Question

I'm in Minecraft PE and I can't find the ender pearl in creative mode.

Check that your Minecraft PE version is not outdated. You should find that the newest version has eye of enders in the 'sword' tab.
Question

How do I get Ender Pearls?

You can get Ender Pearls by defeating Endermen. You also have a chance of finding them in stronghold altar chests.
Question

Would I place the eye of an ender in inside the center of the 3x3 square?

Gerbillover

Community Answer

You do not place it in the center. Instead, place one eye of ender on each portal frame block.
Question

Why is this not working for me when I do it in creative? It never lights up.

Try standing inside the frame or floating above the center while you build the portal. The portal might not work if the frame blocks are facing the wrong direction (even if it looks right).
Question

I already arrived at the location; when I made the portal it never functioned. Why?

Mrs.Spooks

Community Answer

Make sure the green tabs on the End Portal Blocks are facing the center of the portal. They Eyes of Ender must do this, too. Otherwise, the portal won't open.
Question

How far do I have to dig?

Not very far, but then, it doesn't really matter. Once the Ender Eye shows you the place, you just dig until you reach it.
Question

How do I make the portal?

You can only make an End Portal in Creative mode. Get 12 end portal frames, and place them in a 3 x 3 square. Put eyes of ender in them by left-clicking, then add one to the middle. Once you have done that, jump through the portal.
Question

Where do I find the Eyes of Ender?

Kill a few Enderman. Eventually, they will drop Ender pearls. Grab the pearls, then combine them with the blaze rod on a crafting table. This will make an Eye of Ender.

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Unlike the Nether portals, you won't have a chance to back out of the End portal, so make sure you're ready.
Bring plenty of cobblestone or other building blocks that Endermen can't move. If you spawn on a platform far away from the End island you'll need to build a path. If possible, you can use Ender Pearls to teleport to the main island.
Strongholds have 1/1000 chance of spawning under the well.
If you go to the End on peaceful, no Endermen will spawn.

Thanks for submitting a tip for review!

Eyes of Ender might not lead you to the right location in Computer worlds created before October 2011, or Console worlds created before April 2013.

About This Article

Article SummaryX

To find the end portal in Minecraft, combine blaze powders and ender pearls in the crafting table to make 16 Eyes of Ender. Equip one and watch it move horizontally towards the nearest stronghold. Follow the eye in a straight line for at least 500 blocks. As the Eye falls to the ground, collect it if it hasn't broken. Keep using the Eyes to direct your path until one of them travels downward, marking an underground stronghold. Dig out the stronghold to find the portal room, and activate it with 12 Eyes. Then, jump into the portal to fight the Ender Dragon. If you want to learn how to use cheats to find the End Portal, keep reading!

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